[74: "This noted oppressor was finally brought to trial, and beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh (6th February, 1614). It is said that the King's mood was considerably heated against him by some ill-chosen and worse written Latin inscriptions with which his father and himself had been unlucky enough to decorate some of their insular palaces. In one of these, Earl Robert, the father, had given his own designation thus: 'Orcadiæ Comes _Rex_ Jacobi Quinti Filius.' In this case he was not, perhaps, guilty of anything worse than bad Latin. But James VI., who had a keen nose for puzzling out treason, and with whom an assault and battery upon Priscian ranked in nearly the same degree of crime, had little doubt that the use of the nominative _Rex_, instead of the genitive _Regis_, had a treasonable savor."--Scott's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xxiii. p. 232.] [75: Henry Mackenzie's Introduction to _The Fatal Sisters_.--_Works_, 1808, vol. viii. p. 63.] [76: "A Skerrie means a flattish rock which the sea does not overflow."--Edmonstone's _View of the Zetlands_.] [77: Clerk Colvill falls a sacrifice to a meeting with "a fair Mermaid," whom he found washing her "Sark of Silk" on this romantic shore. He had been warned by his "gay lady" in these words:-- "O promise me now, Clerk Colvill, Or it will cost ye muckle strife, Ride never by the Wells of Slane, If ye wad live and brook your life."] [78: Sir William Honeyman, Bart.--a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Armadale.] [79: _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. v. p. 355.] [80: _History of the Orkney Islands_, by the Rev. George Barry, D. D., 4to, Edinburgh, 1805.] CHAPTER XXX DIARY CONTINUED. -- STROMNESS. -- BESSY MILLIE'S CHARM. -- CAPE WRATH. -- CAVE OF SMOWE. -- THE HEBRIDES. -- SCALPA, ETC. 1814